At the Speed of Light
by runicmagitek
Summary: He agreed to bring them to her tomb, but he wasn't prepared for the memories which surfaced there. Darill/Setzer


"This is your friend's grave?"

Setzer slowed to a halt at Celes' voice. His gaze drifted along the ground while recounting whether or not he informed the group of the details. True, he had been drunk when he conceived the brilliant idea to acquire a new set of wings, but he was rather certain he never rattled off the identity of the Falcon's former pilot.

It had been years since he last saw her. She teased him with the prospect that her airship would continue to outperform his. Back then, Setzer tried to convince her she was pushing herself for nothing. Empty words fell upon deaf ears. Darill had plenty to prove when she was thousands of years ahead of her time and chained to an age where she was forever an outcast.

"This time I'm going to touch the stars!" he remembered her saying.

He hoped she did. He hoped she brought one back for him.

Setzer cast his sights onto the tomb before them, the exact crash site he discovered a year after she promised to meet him at their favorite spot. His heart skipped in his chest and his breath caught in his throat. Setzer never wished that dreadful, gut-wrenching sensation upon anyone. Not even his most formidable rivals and loathed enemies. No one deserved to unearth their other half, once lost and faded out of from conversation, dead and gone.

Now the question spun to him was if she was his _friend._ Well, more technically, if this was said friend's grave. Setzer couldn't focus on the tomb, too busy rummaging through layers that comprised of his relationship with Darill.

She _hated_ labels. Then again, she hated anything pertaining to conventional norms. Darill vied to defy them. Setzer admired her for it, though if a stranger was to ask him what she was to him - what she _meant_ to him - he couldn't settle on a single definition.

She was his friend. A like-minded soul who was forever game for storming the local tavern in search for a good drink or ten. Talking with Darill was easier than speaking with any other man he knew. She possessed a blunt quality to her tongue on top of her boisterous nature. Despite her rough edges, Setzer could count on her; Darill's loyalty persisted longer than the good word of those who still owed him money.

She was his rival. They might have bickered over it for days on end, but Setzer knew who the mechanical mastermind was. Like hell he was ever going to give into Darill's whims and stroke her ego by yielding to her. Setzer relished a good game and an even better chase to satiate the high only hedonists were acquainted with. And she saw his determination and her inner adrenaline junkie anted up, just to claim she had more balls than him. She couldn't say no to the opportunity to shut Setzer down and put him in his place, even if the odds weren't in her favor.

She was his partner-in-crime. It was hard to keep track of who was the schemer and who was the catalyst. Setzer held no qualms with bouncing back and forth between the roles. Each business venture he proposed to Darill left her eyes wide and her mouth grinning. She might not have been savvy or Jidoor levels of charismatic, but she was eager and determined. Besides, no one helped Setzer burn through his money better than Darill. While Setzer excelled in assembling and manipulating machinery, Darill was the inventor of their duo. He marveled over her blueprints, wondering how vast her imagination truly was. Perhaps it was boundless as the night sky. Maybe that was why when she looked up at the stars, she found herself at peace.

She was his lover. He recalled when he first tasted her lips and how she ignited a sensation stronger than his gambling addiction ever could. He didn't care if she wasn't a mirror image of the Jidoorian socialites with their frilly dresses and layered make-up. Setzer lusted for the woman in thigh-high boots, ripped fishnets, short skirts, and flowing jackets. Every inch of her he memorized. Every subtle curve, every callous on her fingertips, every coo flowing out of her painted lips, and every look in her dazzling eyes that begged him not to stop. Darill embraced him every night he brought her back to bed - or somewhere remotely close to the bedroom - arching into him, squeezing needy thighs around him, and clawing at his back just to spur him further. Of all the women he shared a sinful evening with, none of them held a candle to the decadence which was Darill.

She was his soulmate. For the longest time, Setzer found ways to escape the world he came to loathe. There was no home for him on the ground. He longed to fly with the birds soaring by and calling out in the distance. No one else might have dared to take flight, but Setzer was content in his newfound freedom. He simply didn't believe it was possible to find someone else to fly beside him. In all the time he knew Darill, she never questioned him - she simply _knew_. An unspoken connection tangled them together. His heart swelled for hers. To him, it surpassed love, for what they shared did not have a proper definition yet. And how silly was that? Though it was true. Whenever Setzer gazed upon Darill, he wanted to do more than offer his heart to her; he wanted to inspire her to _live_ to the fullest.

And she did. It just so happened she died out like a shooting star in the process.

Time crept by and Setzer forgot what her laughter sounded like, what her hands felt like, what her hair smelled like, and what her lips tasted like. Yet he could never forget _her_ \- the other half to his essence, his very being. The details smudged, but somehow, she lived on in him. Darill burned into Setzer's fiber and it reflected in every damn aspect of his life. For so long he refused to embrace that reality, forever searching for a way to ease the pain which accompanied a broken heart. All the empty bottles of scotch, all the faceless women, all the stupid _things_ he threw himself at to feel _alive_ again.

To feel anything.

How could he ever begin to explain Darill? How could he possibly do her _justice_? How could anyone comprehend the sheer elation, the absolute pleasure, the unbridled rush, the undeniable passion he shared with her?

Setzer drew in a deep breath, eyed the tomb, then gazed back to the others. "Yeah," he said while basking in the nostalgia. "She was really something."


End file.
